


Grieving

by kitkatkaylie



Series: Jonmund Summer 2020 [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Day 1, Grief/Mourning, Hardholme, Jonmund Summer 2020, M/M, Post-Canon, mention of child death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:09:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26083222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitkatkaylie/pseuds/kitkatkaylie
Summary: When the battles are over, then it is time to mourn the dead...The Free Folk return to Hardholme to mourn the massacre, Jon might not have lost anyone there, but he can still support his lover.Written for Day 1 of Jonmund Summer 2020: Day at the Ocean
Relationships: Tormund Giantsbane/Jon Snow
Series: Jonmund Summer 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1893670
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	Grieving

The sun glinted off of the ocean almost peacefully, sparkling pinks and oranges reflected upon the water. It looked almost warm and inviting, the way that Sansa had once described the sea near Kings Landing. 

Considering Jon had only seen it blanketed in a thick layer of ash he had only taken her word for it. 

No one would ever jump in the sea at Hardholme, not any more. It was too cold for one, you would freeze as soon as you entered the water; but more than that: it was a graveyard. 

Some had chosen to jump into the freezing waters of the bay, to try and swim for the ships rather than face the Night King and his army of the dead. Others had chosen to fling themselves beneath the waves, knowing it would kill them but with the hope that it would keep their corpse from being reanimated, from coming back to kill their loved ones. 

They were the only bodies left in what had once been the greatest Free Folk Camp in history. Their bloated forms washing up on the beaches the only ones left, all the others had fallen along with their master at Winterfell. 

For all there were few corpses the remains of the camp were still haunted. The detritus of a thousand lives snuffed out in a mere hour lay about, boots and blades and flint and perhaps most heartbreakingly of all children’s toys lay where they had been dropped. 

The ruins of tents, the foundations of wooden lodges, all still stood upon the ground, buffeted by the winds and ice and yet still there. Still a monument to the people who had once lived there. 

Every so often one of the people in their group would stoop and pick something up, a bead or a doll or a scrap of cloth, and they would let out a wail of anguish and pain. 

Jon hated the sight, for Hardholme was one of his greatest failures, and to see the sheer anguish of the Free Folk hurt more than the daggers which had taken his life. 

He hated what it had done to Tormund, for his love had become almost a different man since their arrival, his joviality and the good humour which had surrounded him even in the depths of battle had dissipated, leaving behind only anger and grief.

Jon knew he had lost people during the attack on Hardholme, but that was all. Tormund never spoke of it, never talked about his losses, only gained a shadowed expression whenever it was mentioned.

And Jon did not know how best to ease his burdens, all he could do was offer a shoulder to cry on and a non judgmental place in which he might share his grief. It was as Tormund had done for him after Rickon’s death, as Tormund had done for him when he woke from nightmares where Winterfell burned, where his sisters burned at the whim of a mad queen. 

The sun no longer glinted off the ocean by the time the pyres were prepared. Instead it was the stars, reflected upon the inky water as they were the sky above so that the sky appeared almost never ending, a endless blanket of black velvet encrusted with jewels. 

The pyres stood along the beach, just short of the gently lapping waves. When the tide came in it would carry the ashes away, would allow them to see new horizons and shores. There were hundreds of them, not just pyres for the bodies which had washed up on shore, but ones for tokens of those lost who had never been truly mourned, and, the most terrible of all, ones for bundles of swaddling rags found nestled in tents, bundles that had been left untouched by everything but the cold. 

There were very few dry eyes as those pyres were lit, those babes who had never had a chance at life and who had likely not even been named. 

They all mourned the babes, and those who had not been identified or claimed together. A few hundred people stood, watching as fire claimed the remains, and a mourning song filled the air, ancient in its words and melody. 

Jon slipped his hand into Tormund’s and squeezed, he did not know the mourning rites of the Free Folk, only those of the North, and while he could not participate he could at least offer comfort. 

“We do not expect our babes to live long,” Tormund whispered hoarsely, “And yet to have them taken away from us in such a way, it still burns. It was a crueler fate than they deserved.”

They watched as the flames burnt down, under smouldering ashes were all that remained, the song dying down as the ashes did. 

The mourning over those pyres wasn’t just for those contained within, but for all lives lost during the Night King’s campaign. And for all the importance of those, there were still those pyres set up for individual mourning, for those who were known and loved as individuals rather than as part of the community. 

Jon followed Tormund to a small pyre, a child sized one, one without any bones of belongings already on its surface. 

Tormund placed a doll, a thing made from straw and scraps of cloth, one with red hair atop its head, upon the pyre. 

“My Munda was training to be a spear wife, just like her mother. She’d just been accepted by them, just been given her first spear when the attack happened. She was eight. She never made it onto the boat.” 

Jon’s breath caught in his throat, he wanted to say something, anything to comfort Tormund but the words would not come. 

“Torva, my other daughter, she was older. Three and ten. She made it onto a boat, only, she was stationed at Eastwatch.” Tormund’s voice broke on the last word, he did not have to say any more for Jon to know what had happened to her. Tormund himself had been one of two survivors from the dragon attack on Eastwatch. 

He could not say anything to that, no words of sympathy would be enough, instead he just leaned against Tormund, offering a silent comfort, a reminder he was not alone, as his lover lit the pyre with tears streaming down his cheeks. He sent a prayer to the gods, the Old and New, the Red and the Drowned, that they might offer Tormund’s daughters a peace in death that they did not have in their too short lives. 

The fires glinted off of the ocean, turning the waves red and orange and yellow, and Jon held Tormund as he cried. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Find me on tumblr @istaricelebelasse


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